Non-Profits, Or No Profits?

Cincy’s Top 30 charities seem to be hurting just a bit. That’s if you subscribe to the results of a 2007 “Metro Market Study” issued by the agency Charity Navigator, which claims that Cincinnati’s non-profit community is one of just two in the nation to report a median deficit for the most recent tax year.

The city’s largest charities, on average, reported an average of $16,977 in the red; nationally, the Top 30 charities in each major city reported a median $205,102 in the black. Just as concerning: “Charities in Cincinnati are not growing. Cincinnati’s charities face the real risk of additional shortfalls if they aren’t able to increase their rate of revenue growth, which is only 2.9 percent annually (the fourth slowest in the nation),” states the report.

The survey doesn’t specifically identify the Top 30 non-profits in the study, but notes they are the large arts, cultural, health and public benefit groups.

This is the fifth year that Charity Navigator, a web site that tracks charitable giving across the nation, has analyzed the tax returns of the country’s major philanthropic organizations to compile this analysis.